Ben Maitland-Lewis interviews Boston-area recording studio owner Dan Cardinal at the Jamaica Plain Music Festival. The Backbone Network’s control panel is on the computer screen.

There’s something about a nationwide snowstorm that makes us wax nostalgic about what we did last summer. Sure, we were busy last summer developing sports and talk radio, as well as getting one of the country’s top newspapers broadcasting live online. But we also took time to smell the roses and listen to the music.

The first week of September we again helped Boston’s Jamaica Plain Music Fest showcase local musical talent to an audience that now spans the globe. One of the coordinators of the event, Charles McEnerney, wrote up a user report for RadioWorld Magazine, describing how he was able to do this “smoothly and professionally” on a limited budget, and what equipment he used to broadcast the two-stage event. McEnerney, a respected media consultant at Layers Marketing, also compares the broadcast with what he did for the Future of Music Coalition (futureofmusic.org), at their annual Future of Music Summit.

And while we have the opportunity, we would like to thank the on-air talent who turned a great event into great radio: Boston TV and radio personality Melissa Gaudette and Ben Maitland-Lewis, CEO of Presskit.to.

After showing off our integrated phone system, announcing TalkersRadio at the TALKERS New York event and working with TalkersRadio at Radio Day at the UN we returned home to participate in a local high tech happening, Innovation Nights – Boston.

Innovation Nights – Boston is the home of the original Innovation Nights events. It all started in April 2009 as Mass Innovation Nights (MIN) with a website and a monthly event designed to help local innovators increase the buzz around new products and companies.

Every month ten companies bring new products to the event and the social media community turns out to blog, tweet, post pictures and video, add product mentions to LinkedIn and Facebook statuses, and otherwise help spread the word. In the last two years, the events have helped to:

Launch more than 500 products

Connect dozens of job seekers and hiring managers

Profile dozens of local experts

Launch a wave of Innovation Nights events around the world (coming soon)

Held once a month (usually the second Wednesday of the month, registration and networking at 6:00 p.m.), presentations start showing at 7:00 p.m., the live events allow companies to show off Massachusetts-based innovation.

While at Innovation Nights I gave a sneak preview of our new integrated phone service that works with Backbone Radio. Similar to Backbone Radio’s automation, the phone system will be in the cloud. Now your phone system can go on the road with you along with your automation so you can operate your station anywhere. Chris Day, the Director of Broadcast and Digital Media at Major League Lacrosse recently wrote an article for RadioWorld Magazine about what they were able to do last year with the Backbone Radio service. They found that what Backbone provides, compared to a traditional broadcast set up, saved them quite a bit of money and made broadcasting very simple.

Thanks to Innovation Nights – Boston for providing the opportunity to show a different audience our new Internet radio phone service. The connections we made their with the local innovation community are invaluable. Now we will be working to help our customers launch Talk Radio programs as part of their broadcasts!

Every week last season Major League Lacrosse broadcast at least one game live. Initially starting with the ESPN feed of the game of the week, transitioning to their own broadcasters and then to taking live calls before games and during half time. And Backbone was with them every step of the way and for that opportunity we are grateful! In traditional broadcast media doing a live remote (or outside broadcast) is very expensive. There are lots of moving parts and pieces to coordinate. The set up and tear down alone is quite time consuming. With Backbone’s help, Major League Lacrosse took steps to simplify what they needed to do to get their broadcasts on the air.

After talking to traditional broadcasters and getting quotes on what it would take do these remotes the old way they turned to Backbone. We showed them how “With a Mac and a Mic” (and an Internet connection) they would be able to take their show on the road from week to week and run a very high quality broadcast. This week they told their story to Radio World Magazine in the streaming edition. It is a great read and even mentions things we have in the works . . . but not announced. Stay tuned for more about what we have been up to.